THE SUN BB

to cry. The charcoal-burner, on going over to it, found that
his wife was dead.

“Poor little orphan,” he said sadly, “ what will become of
thee without’a mother’s care?”

*“ Confide this child to me,” said the king, “I will look after
it. He shall be well provided for. You shall be given a sum
of money large enough to keep you without having to burn
charcoal.’’

The poor man gladly agreed, and the king went away
promising to send some one for the child. The queen and
courtiers thought it would be an agreeable surprise for the
king to hear that a charming little princess had been born
on the night he was away. But instead of being pleased he
frowned, and calling one of his servants, said to him, “Go
to the charcoal-burner’s cottage in the forest, and give the
man this purse in exchange for a new-born infant. On
your way back drown the child. See well that he is drowned,
for if he should in any way escape, you yourself shall suffer
in his place.”

The servant was given the child in a basket, and on
reaching the centre of a narrow bridge that stretched across
a wide and deep river, he threw both basket and baby into
the water.

“A prosperous journey to you, Mr. Son-in-Law,” said the
king, on hearing the servant’s story: for he fully believed
the child was drowned. But it was far from being the case;
the little one was floating happily along in its basket cradle,
and slumbering as sweetly as if his mother had sung him
to sleep. Now it happened that a fisherman, who was mend-

ing his nets before his cottage door, saw the basket floating
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